The Variables in Our Equation
by Ridiculous Mavis
Summary: Years after Elphaba's death and with war looming, Glinda travels to other worlds trying to save Elphaba, herself, and Oz. An AU of AUs. One-shot very-bookverse Gelphie. (Character death. Several, repeatedly.)


Glinda stumbled. Her reaching hand found a resting place. The bark of a tree was rough underneath her fingers. Her mouth filled with bile and she resisted the indecorous urge to empty it. The world started coming into focus around her.

Elphaba.

That was why she was here.

"Saints preserve us!" Nanny exclaimed as she opened the door.

"Hello, Nanny," Glinda said, acting as normal as possible. Considering.

"Who is it?" said a voice from the hall behind. "Is it her?"

"It's certainly a her." Nanny replied. A boy leaned into view. "This," Nanny said to him, "is little Miss Glinda. Or should I be calling you Lady Chuffrey now?"

"You should be letting me in," Glinda said impatiently.

Still talking to the boy, Nanny continued, "The first Her. The original Her."

"Nanny, you've gone entirely dotty. Where is Elphaba?"

Nanny shut the door, clucking.

Liir circled Glinda, looking up at her. "Why do you want to see Auntie Witch? Have you come to kill her? There's a girl coming to kill her."

"Now then!" Nanny snapped at him. Then to Glinda, "Our Elphie is... indisposed."

"I can hear banging upstairs. That is her, surely?"

"No-one else, no-one else," Nanny started to drift into reminiscences. "They've all gone."

"I'm here," said Liir. "I'll fight them."

"Oh, yes, we have His Lordship here."

Glinda surveyed him properly. She'd met him as a young man but here stood an ungainly child. He had been nothing she had expected. Which made a lot of sense. It seemed a very Elphaba sort of a thing to do.

"Nanny, I really must speak with Elphaba."

Nanny shrugged. "If you can find her."

"That's her upstairs?" Glinda repeated.

"That's the Witch. I don't know where Elphaba went." Nanny came over all despondent. "I was supposed to be retired, you know."

"I know," Glinda said, apologetic and sad all of a sudden. "We were all supposed to be a lot of things."

Glinda went up the stairs following the sound of the crashing and clattering. She peered round the door. "Elphaba?"

"What is it?" Elphaba's back was turned. She was rummaging through a trunk although most of the contents appeared to be on the floor already. The room was chaotic.

Glinda picked her way through. "Elphaba." She reached out and made contact with a bony shoulder. The shock of it made her want to pull back. She didn't until Elphaba whirled round, almost knocking them both over.

"You!" Elphaba snatched up a poker and pointed it square in Glinda's perplexed face. "You too! Sent to take me away!"

"No, Elphie, no. I'm here to help." Glinda motioned with a certain amount of panic for the poker to be lowered. "Dear me, so dramatic!" It was more than drama though. Elphaba looked through her, not seeing, caught up in a world of her own. Glinda had not realised how bad it had become.

"Help, help. He's sent you too."

"No-one sent me," Glinda affirmed. That was not entirely true. It was true enough. "I came of my own accord."

"But how? But how?" Elphaba muttered and dropped the poker, seeming to have forgotten she was holding it in the first place.

Just to see Elphaba, her Elphie, real and vibrant. There was an elated moment quickly followed by desperation. How was she to remedy this? Why had she not been here the first time? Why had she given up so easily? Why hadn't she followed Elphaba to the very furthest ends of the world, why not here?

"What can I do, Elphie? To help?"

"They are coming. All this time I thought he was dead. But he's coming back with the Girl to take vengeance."

"Who is coming?"

Glinda watched Elphaba gesture around the room. No, not around the room. The castle. "Fiyero?"

She shrank from his name as she shrank from rain.

"Oh, dearest, no, he's not." She put her hand on Elphaba's shoulder again. Now Elphaba was peering out the window with her telescope and Glinda felt a little safer from assault. "I promise you he doesn't want vengeance. I'm so sorry for what happened. But we can fix this. We can still do something."

"I am doing something. I am trying! I sent my dogs but they were killed! And my crows! Then my bees! Killers."

"I know, I know. Which is perhaps why we should get you out of here, yes?"

Elphaba collapsed her telescope with finality. "There's nowhere to go."

"Come with me." Glinda did not have much of a plan and was driven more by desperation than logic. She hadn't truly believed this would work and had under-prepared. But escape seemed reasonable. "Come with me. We can find somewhere nice and quiet. I'll... I'll look after you." As soon as it came to mind the possibility of this future hurt Glinda more than anything. It could be. It could still be.

"Nowhere to go. They are here."

Already? Glinda peered down through the murky window. At the edge of the forest in front of the slope up to Kiamo Ko there was movement indeed. It may not be them, she thought desperately. A villager, traders, anyone else.

She knew. Just as Elphaba seemed to know that the moment of doom was approaching.

At first the encounter was so polite Glinda thought her very presence was enough to change their fate. Maybe she had changed it already. They were halfway through a reasonably civilised dinner, for goodness sake. This was not a murder in the making. Tempers, however, were heated.

Glinda inserted herself between Elphaba and Dorothy. The girl, after all, owed her a favour. But Elphaba needed constant placating and seemed intent on making matters worse

Added to which there was Liir alternately weeping and hanging around waiting for some excitement, some violence. And Nanny making no sense whatsoever and frequently disappearing. Which took Glinda off guard when she ended up being locked in the kitchen with Liir, the Lion and a ratty dog. So that when it came to it there was nothing to be done. Glinda could only pound at the door before collapsing fitfully onto the floor, her dress exhaling around her.

"I'd never kissed a girl before." Liir was more concerned with his recent conquest. "I could kiss you. Make you feel better." He looked at her hopefully.

"No," she told him sternly. He folded his arms in a sulk.

The commotion above them stopped and Glinda felt it and knew absolutely that it had happened. She remembered that feeling before, all those years ago, when she had been wakened in the night by it. Such a strong pull. And now that was happening once more: many miles away in the Emerald City she was sitting up in bed and lighting a candle without really knowing why.

* * *

Glinda sat up on her cot and heaved a breath in and out a few times. A deeply unpleasant experience. Yackle observed dispassionately from her stool in the corner of the crypt.

"How long was I gone?"

"I wasn't counting," Yackle sniffed, reluctant to the last. "Maybe an hour."

It had felt like longer than that but she couldn't be sure. "It didn't work."

"I can see that."

Glinda hadn't believed it would work, in truth. A spoonful of vile concoction and you would wake in another world? Please. So she had not been too caught up in the detail of what might happen to the world she left behind. Now she found she didn't care. She would rip this world apart at the seams to save Elphaba, or simply to try.

"How soon can I go back?" It was a very particular kind of agony to have just been with Elphaba after all these years. And to lose her again only moments ago so that the losses layered over one another. Fresh wounds on old bruises. To lose Elphaba so many times in so many ways already. If she could be said to ever had had her.

This was supposed to be the remedy to that. It seemed that a terrible side effect would be more loss still.

"Tomorrow."

"I can't wait that long."

Yackle stood up with a great show of elderliness. "Tough. Come, let's tell the Mother Superior how we got on."

* * *

Glinda came to herself with a warm sensation in her lap.

"Ma'am!" exclaimed a maid, leaping toward her and taking the cup of tea from her hand.

She glanced down at her soaked dress. "How strange. I lost my concentration for a moment."

"Not sickening, I hope?" said a horribly familiar voice.

Glinda looked over the table at her companion. "Madame Morrible?"

"So formal, _Lady Chuffrey._" Morrible smiled her sickly smile. "Do you need to change? Or do you have more information for me?"

The thread of their conversation had not yet appeared in Glinda's mind and she worked furiously to stall for time.

"Perhaps I should." She could feel a pull with Morrible, teasing the truth from her. She resisted and felt the nausea. This was a world where she was bound in the most horrible way.

"Nessarose says the Quadlings are in the grip of some new fever. If we want advantageous terms you should push Chuffrey into action as soon as possible. There may never be a better time. Elphaba is ready with the Munchkin farmers to release more grain into the market."

"Elphaba?"

"But yes. Are you quite well?"

"Elphaba is at Colwen Grounds?"

"A fine state of affairs it would be if the Eminent Thropp were anywhere but. Unless she were here and you know she never comes here."

Glinda was forming a vague impression of why – of arguing with Elphaba at her club, at Elphaba's residences at Lower Mennipin street, everywhere. "Because of me?"

"True, I had hoped your relationship would improve but you always did like to contradict me."

"I could take a trip..." Glinda mused.

"If you like. You could go via the Glikkus. It would cheer them to have a visit from Glinda the Good."

"Maybe on the return," Glinda said. There was no time to lose. She rang the bell.

"Right now?" Morrible asked, surprised.

"I don't see why not." She turned to her maid. "I'm going away. I need a coach to Nest Hardings and travel things packed."

"Yes, ma'am. When, ma'am?"

"This very moment."

"Pfenix would be faster," Morrible remarked.

"Elphaba doesn't approve of Pfenix," Glinda said, Elphaba's approvals and preferences meticulously logged and pondered over for years.

It was to no avail. She managed to get out of the city and overnight trying to stay awake but the effects wore off before she was halfway there.

* * *

"I need to stay longer." Glinda rummaged through Yackle's bottles and jars without having the faintest idea what she was searching for. "A few hours is no use at all."

"Delicate balance, see," Yackle said, knocking her hand away. "How much you have, how long you stay, how much you remember…"

"But if I had longer," Glinda insisted. "This time was different. Something had already changed. Elphaba had taken up her position, the binding spell had worked. It was a different world."

"So you learned a new tidbit."

"Not enough. If I'd had more time I could have found what had changed." Found a way to apply it to another trip. Found a way to change their destinies. Found Elphaba.

* * *

Glinda's throat burned and she coughed before her eyes were open. The air was thick with smoke.

"You're awake," said a devastatingly familiar voice next to her. "Bad timing, I'm afraid."

With her senses more about her she found she could not move and was looking down at a crowd. When she looked over to her side she saw... well, it was unmistakeably Elphaba but not even the slightest bit green. She was lashed to a wooden pole. As, Glinda realised, was she.

"What?"

"You passed out for a bit. Not that I blame you," Elphaba said conversationally, managing to chat despite the smoke that came rolling up in increasing quantities.

Glinda coughed.

"If you breathe it in," Elphaba said, "it may knock you out again. Until it's all over."

"What happened?"

"Oh, the usual."

Even in this completely foreign setting Elphaba couldn't keep herself out of trouble. This was also a bust as far as the plan went. Glinda had not yet died on her excursions. So there would be several new developments. Perhaps she could still glean vital clues.

There were vague memories coalescing in her mind from this world. "Witch!" the villagers surrounding them cried. Witchcraft! She was a sorceress, please. But Elphaba… that meant her powers must have come on far earlier in this world than their own.

"I'm not thrilled it's come to this," Elphaba said, having to raise her voice over the roar of the flames and the crowd. "But being as it has, you should know there's no-one I'd rather get burnt at the stake with."

"You say the loveliest things," Glinda shot back, straining at her ropes and far more occupied with the direness of their situation.

Elphaba was intent despite Glinda's sarcasm. "Hell's bells, Glinda, I'm trying to. I'm trying to tell you that -"

It was the tone that snagged Glinda's attention. "What?"

But Elphaba's exertion had taken it's toll and she coughed horribly, having to heave in her breath. Her head rolled back.

The flashes of light and pain interspersed with flashes of memories where she saw the woods in moonlight and clothes slipping from her body. Elphaba beside her then, as now, as always. Searing pain and a moment of her trial - her trial. Elphaba beside her there too, interrupting and arguing and being dragged away. This once at least, it was she who had led Elphaba astray.

"Elphaba!" She was lost now to the smoke and the flames and Glinda was headed the same way.

* * *

The usual shortness of breath was not helped by her last memory being of choking on smoke. She sat up and gestured for water. Which Yackle provided at a snail's pace.

"That wasn't –" she gasped, "wasn't even in Oz."

Yackle did not look in any way disturbed by this, which was disturbing in itself. "No reason why it should be."

"I thought I was going back in time?"

"Other times."

The distinction was blurry to Glinda but she felt blurry herself. "I died."

"Not quite."

"But Elphaba will die, every time. Even if I don't have to see it." And Elphaba had said things... Glinda had seen things...

* * *

It was dark and the agitated voices of angry strangers were nearby but more than anything else Glinda was aware of the magic in the air. Something old and terrifying that stuck in her throat, suffocating.

She stood in a ditch and on the road a crowd passed, pitchforks ready, baying for blood. Munchkins in a semi-regular rebellion. As always Glinda had one thought: to get to Elphaba.

She began to follow the mob but in the glow of their torches caught a glimpse of a copse off the road. It was more than that. An intuition, the pull of the magic. She glanced at the receding backs of the mob and gambled on her gut.

A fine rain fell and as she got closer a shape loomed among the trees. Unnatural and primal at the same time. "The Clock," Glinda gasped. "The Clock of the Time Dragon."

Bustling around the foot of it were three women, the oldest of whom turned to her now. "Missed their performance in town did you? You'd be the only one. Missing the performance now of that foolish minister being torn limb from limb most probably."

"Where -"

But before she could ask her question she was interrupted with a bony finger held in the air. "You look like you know what you are about," the owner said.

"I don't –"

"Ever delivered a baby before?"

"No."

"You're clean at least. Come on then!" the old woman barked at her, so she went to follow but realised with a shudder that the pregnant woman was inserted inside the clock. Safe and hidden but hardly an auspicious start.

The woman heaved with contractions. She was not going to be pregnant much longer. She looked familiar, not that Glinda had ever met her.

It took hours for the apex to be reached with an uncooperative and unconscious main participant. Finally the moment was at hand and the thing slipped out.

Glinda stood outside and was passed the tiny, wriggling body. The slickness turned her stomach as she grappled with it. She got a better grip and held the creature up to get a good look. What was traditional in these cases? Oh, yes. "It's... it's a..." she began. In the dawn light she caught the unmistakeable hue. "It's Elphaba."

"You can't name it." The old woman snatched Elphaba away. "What have we got here?" She rubbed between little kicking legs. In reply Elphaba bit her finger clean off. Glinda laughed. It was horrifying. She still laughed.

"Pitch it in the lake!" the younger woman cried.

"You'll do no such thing," Glinda protested.

"I'm not staying," the crone said and huffed off, followed by the others, the younger of whom thrust Elphaba into Glinda's arms.

"You little devil," Glinda said. With affection rather than condemnation. "I wish I could stay. I'm not sure what good I could possibly have done. Other than stopping you go for a swim."

Elphaba gave a disinterested yawn.

"Which I suppose never happened anyway. Damnation."

She tipped Elphaba back into her unconscious mother's arms and gave Melena a poke, to no avail. "Look after her," she said anyway. "Look after yourself. Stay off the pinlobble and try not to have affairs with wandering Quadlings. Sound advice for anyone I should think."

The weakness began.

* * *

Once recovered Glinda brought up the issue with Yackle. "Do you think it's possible to go further back than Elphaba's lifespan? By more than a few minutes, at least?"

Yackle either did not know or would not be drawn.

"It occurs to me it is her parents I ought to be giving a talking to. Never mind hounding Elphie across worlds."

"There'll be a reason for that." Yackle sucked at her teeth. "There's a reason for everything, or so say the demons that whisper in my ear."

Glinda searched for some sign of a joke but Yackle seemed entirely serious. "Thank you for your wise counsel," she said doubtfully, but surprised she was no more than mildly concerned. This life seemed less bizarre by the day. The reason became clearer by the day too.

* * *

Glinda's head snapped up with the guiltiness of one caught napping.

"I said, is anyone sitting there?" A Glikkun dwarf indicated the space next to her.

"No. I mean, yes. My sister. I am saving this seat for my sister."

The dwarf tsked but Glinda had come quickly to her senses and knew exactly where she was. Having protected the seat she immediately ejected herself from the coach and scanned the busy street for Elphaba. Here she came, all billowing cape and frowning intensity.

"Get in, quick about it," Elphaba said brusquely. How rude she was.

"I know what you are planning, Elphaba Thropp," Glinda scolded her. "And I'm not going to let you get away with it."

With narrowed eyes Elphaba thrust the stale bread, ripe cheese and unexpected oranges into Glinda's arms. Glinda let them fall.

"That was your lunch."

"I don't want lunch. I want you to get into that carriage and come back to Shiz with me."

"I won't go back there."

The vehemence of Elphaba's feeling was palpable now as well as in her memories. Going back to university had seemed like the most obvious solution, the most obvious way to change this world. Get Elphaba back among friends and with more time, just a bit more time. They were so young. They were too young. "I know, it's awful. But you need to think about the path you are setting yourself on."

However this Elphaba didn't have a trace of circumspection. She had dragged them off to the Emerald City on a whim and was going to stay here on a whim. Had Glinda arrived too early? Or already too late?

"I don't know about paths. I don't know yet where I'm going."

"All right." She was regarded with suspicion. Attaching herself to Elphaba was not going to help. "I know you need to do this. But Elphaba, please, one thing?"

Elphaba hovered for a moment.

"I've humoured you enough these weeks -" and oh how she had - "so you can give me this. Write to me. Or Nessa. Someone. Don't disappear."

There was a quick frown in response. The coachman called to Glinda to hurry up about it unless she wanted to be left behind. The rest of the scene came into focus and she remembered they were here on this bustling Emerald City street and not, in fact, caught up in their own little bubble.

Elphaba only looked fitful and undecided as she took Glinda's shoulders and almost lifted her up the step onto the coach.

Glinda turned. They were a jumble of arms and struggling against one another.

She enacted the curse Elphaba once placed on her so effectively. "Hold out if you can." She wasn't brave enough to seal it as Elphaba had before.

The effect of the words was stunning. "Hold out, my sweet," Elphaba echoed with wide eyes. Glinda might not have been brave enough but Elphaba was. Rough and anguished as she pulled Glinda even closer, she put her face against Glinda's and kissed her.

* * *

Glinda woke up in tears from the coach ride back, even as she had convinced herself this was a better outcome for Elphaba - a sliver of hope.

"Well?" she demanded of Yackle.

Yackle looked around as if the decor of the crypt might offer some sort of clue. Then shrugged.

"Damn that willful girl!" Glinda cried, exhausted and frustrated.

* * *

At first Glinda was confused, beholding her own self. The rules on whether she arrived in her own body or an additional one were unclear. Vagaries encompassed by the catch-all of 'magic.' This, however, was a looking glass. She was in her wedding dress.

Memories of that day poured in. She remembered this moment especially. Heavens, she was good looking. She peered closer at the glass, lifted the skin around her jaw and eyes, watching it spring back into place. How she had squandered it. Always worrying, never enjoying. Never mind that. She stole from the room. Out of the suite, out of the hotel.

In the street she drew astonished glances but did not care. She knew exactly where Elphaba was.

In barely any time at all she was up the stairs and rapping on the door with great determination.

There was no reply. "Elphaba, open this door." The silence continued. "Elphaba Thropp, I know you are in there and you will answer me immediately." The barest creak sounded but was enough to drive Glinda on. "Elphaba!"

The door swung open. Elphaba looked like fury. "Enough!" She took hold of Glinda and dragged her in. "Everyone in the neighbourhood will hear you. For the love of Lurline, look at the state of you. I suppose it's too much to ask if anyone saw you come in? There will be reporters at my door."

"Elphie." The relief was too great to say or do anything useful.

"Are you all right?" Elphaba peered at her suspiciously. "You've got horse shit on your... frock."

It wasn't obvious whether the generally clueless Elphaba had entirely twigged so Glinda clarified. "Wedding dress."

"I see." Elphaba was not aloof so much as guarded. "And this is what? Farewell before your honeymoon?"

"I didn't go through with it."

"I see." That was a different emotion.

This was an Elphaba unknown to Glinda. They were in their early twenties now and there was something different she had not seen. Elphaba's physical self. She moved easier. They had been teenagers at Shiz, all those lifetimes ago. Then middle aged.

Of course there was Fiyero. That dark horse. So unassuming and quiet and barely-there at Shiz. Who would find Elphaba when Glinda - her own best friend - could not. Who had seduced her. Or Elphaba had seduced him – she did look very knowing. In this room, on that bed. It made Glinda feel wrong. She thought of the beds they had occupied together on the road to the Emerald City. How this bed, too, should have been hers.

"Why now?"

"I only now found out. You know I would have come sooner." She would have. "But you did not want to be found."

"And look where that wish has got me."

"I almost wish I hadn't come." A diabolical lie. "It hurts too much." The opposite. Glinda felt truths welling in her that had never been uncovered. "All this time, you have been an ache. You have made me hurt, always."

Elphaba was alarmed. She moved quickly over to Glinda but faltered at the last moment. A hand in mid-air. Instead, Glinda moved to it. There was no time to wait for Elphaba to unravel this. Glinda could barely unravel it. It was a need. It unravelled itself.

She put herself in Elphaba's arms and kissed her. That Elphaba responded so readily was neither here nor there.

Afterwards, curled in threadbare blankets on Elphaba's mattress, Elphaba toyed with Glinda's hair. "All this time, you said."

"Yes? Well, it has been a long time."

"It sounded longer than that. You sound... you are different."

Running quickly over her options Glinda decided on a new tack. "It's a spell."

Elphaba stiffened.

"I've travelled back in time."

Now she laughed.

Glinda swatted her. "Hear me out at least."

"You came back in time and this is what you chose to do with yourself. Should I be flattered?"

"Not if you are going to be so crude about it."

Elphaba squinted at her. "How long?"

"Long enough." She was not going to admit to her age, not to such a lithe and youthful specimen as this. And being as she possessed her own lithe and youthful body. "In any case, the situation is pretty dire and I'm on a fishing expedition, of sorts, to see if I can salvage anything useful from the past." Salvage you, she thought. Keep you alive.

"And what did you hope to gain from this encounter?" Elphaba was being salacious, the curl of her lip as she said it made Glinda want to both throttle and kiss her.

"A different path. For us both."

"Has it worked?"

"I don't know. I can never really tell."

"How many times?"

More than she could bear. Every time to wake up and realise it had all been for naught, to lose Elphaba all over again. Glinda didn't answer. She clung to Elphaba instead. As though she could weigh Elphaba down, keep her here. That would never work.

"And where am I, in this future of yours?" Silence. "Glinda? Answer me." Elphaba wriggled away.

Glinda let her go. She sat up and pulled the sheets around her. Could Elphaba be told? What calamity might befall them? Could it be any worse than the one that was coming anyway?

"You're dead."

Elphaba blinked.

"You've been dead for years. Before that you went mad. You had a child, you were a maunt..." She peered over her shoulder at Elphaba, curious as to how this was being received.

"A child? A maunt?" Elphaba merely seemed amused.

"You might care how hard this is for me."

"I'm sorry." She tried - and failed - to straighten her face. "Are you sure you are not intoxicated? This sounds like a bad dream from reading too many penny dreadfuls."

"I wish that it were. But it's not just you. Nessa is dead, Fiyero is dead, Oz is at war."

She blanched now. "What happened?" she asked quietly.

So Glinda unfolded the whole sorry story. These trips had furnished her with the finer details and she gave it a convincing sheen. She emphasised her own foolishness; that always gave proceedings an extra ring of truth in people's eyes.

How must it feel to have your destiny laid out like that? Glinda could scarcely tell what Elphaba thought. She was quiet and inscrutable and that was hardly out of character. She listened attentively and did not interrupt – maybe that was.

When Glinda finished Elphaba leant forward and took her hands. "Did you ever think that is exactly how it should have been?"

"No. Never for a moment."

"I know it's awful. But if that is what happened..."

"It's not what _should_ have happened."

"It may not be ideal or to anyone's preferences but life so rarely is. Maybe the reason you can't change it is because it's not meant to be changed. And you have no way of knowing what is to come."

"Whatever is to come it's not worth this. Anyway, this isn't just me, wanting to keep you alive." She took Elphaba's face in her hands and, shockingly, Elphaba allowed it. "Though I would do anything for that. There are other people, people without my... more personal involvement, that want this too. It's for all of Oz. We are in turmoil."

"What makes you think I can help with that?" Elphaba whispered.

"Because I know you. And I want to give you that chance."

It was Elphaba who moved now, rolling Glinda back down onto the bed and distracting her from such weighty questions. After, she fell asleep in Elphaba's arms.

* * *

When she woke up she was not in Elphaba's arms. She wept bitterly, for this and all the other times. That Elphaba had still left, had still embarked down that path, even knowing everything that she knew. Yackle watched from the corner.

"Do you ever think," Glinda asked her, "that we might be wrong, about all this?"

"Of course," Yackle said. "Happen we are. Might not, either."

"Fine use you are," Glinda huffed as she rose from the cot. "I need a drink."

Yackle hobbled after her. "Mother Superior keeps the wine under lock and key."

"Don't play with me. I know half these maunts are brewing their own ale in cupboards and sheds. I've never met a more sozzled bunch."

"Not met many maunts, then," Yackle quipped. "Best not to get too drunk before supper. Eggs tonight and that will turn your stomach on the best of days."

"You've got your days jumbled," Glinda said, her mind on other concerns. "Tonight is garden vegetables."

"You're jumbled," Yackle retorted. "I know my food if I don't know anything else."

Glinda knew she was wrong, though didn't have the energy to argue.

* * *

Today's emerging sensation was unlike any previously. Glinda's mind was running but she didn't seem to have possession of a body yet. She could hear Elphaba's voice but even that wasn't accurate, without a body it was more that she _felt_ Elphaba's voice, inside her. She wasn't sure what she could see. A general lightness. Maybe clouds. She struggled against it.

"Am I dead?" Despite the expansiveness she felt a panicking claustrophobia.

"Well, yes. But it's been a while now." Elphaba said - communicated - with a bemused tinge to it.

With a snap she was in a sunny field. She still didn't feel that she had entirely completed the transition to this world. She felt faded around the edges. She looked down. She _was_ faded around the edges.

Now Elphaba was there too, looking vaguely ethereal in much the same way.

"Where are we?" Glinda asked.

Elphaba took in the surroundings. "A manifestation of our consciousnesses? I suppose even those sainted by the Unnamed God exist on some plane."

"Sainted?" Glinda grasped that Elphaba's quip about them being dead may not actually have been a quip.

"I know, I hardly believe it myself either sometimes. Saint Aelphaba."

"Aelphaba?"

"Yes," Elphaba - Aelphaba - frowned at her. But it was true. This was not Elphaba but a subtle variant. Some reincarnation. Preincarnation.

"It's true then," Glinda mused. "I did wonder. If there was a link."

Elphaba gazed at her uncomprehendingly. They were also, Glinda realised belatedly, floating.

"Don't you hear their prayers?"

Glinda divested herself of these concerns. There was a nagging feeling, a portion of her concentration elsewhere. A stream of thoughts running in from elsewhere. "Yes."

"You always did get more than me," Elphaba said, convivial enough. "Still, someone has to be the patron saint of waterfalls and wanderers."

"Patron saint of sharp elbows and disappearing acts," Glinda corrected. She felt the pulling, though whether from prayers or potions she could not tell as she faded away.

* * *

"Every time I think it can't possibly get any stranger..."

* * *

Rather than an abrupt transfer, this time Glinda felt she was gently slipping into a new world, nary a clatter or nauseous feeling at all. She opened her eyes slowly, warmed by sunlight and feeling suffused with contentment in the same sunlit way.

"Napping the day away." It was Elphaba, of course, kneeling on the ground nearby. Her hands were in the neatly tilled soil. A large hat flapped on her head. "All right for you high class ladies."

"You like to pretend you are not," Glinda found herself laid out in a deckchair and wriggled into a more upright position. She took in her surroundings. "You are more aristocratic than I."

Elphaba stood, picking up a basket of leeks or general form of vegetable. "No aristocrats here. Just a pair of doddery old spinsters."

And now Glinda could see her better she realised how true that was. Elphaba was older, possibly a good deal older, than she had been at Kiamo Ko. Than she had been when Dorothy came. "Speak for yourself."

Clues, she needed clues. She needed to know how they had got here. She also, selfishly, wanted to revel in it for a moment or two.

Elphaba paused. "Are you coming to wash up or will you still be snoozing when the child gets here?"

The child? Not Liir. New memories coalesced. "Your grandchild."

"I'm not sure I like being that specific. The child, Rain."

Glinda cast about in the recollections of this new life and Rain wasn't hard to find. But how it all fitted together eluded her. This old brain creaked and groaned. Going into the past felt energising but the future, as delightful as it seemed, was like wading through mud.

She squinted up at Elphaba. "And will Tip be joining us?" she asked, the question bubbling up without her being entirely sure why.

"It seems highly likely," Elphaba replied with a disinterest Glinda recognised as put-on. "Where there is one there is generally the other."

"Reminds me of youngsters I used to know. Though you might have mentioned the Ozma was coming for tea." That couldn't be right, could it? Elphaba's hitherto-unheard-of granddaughter had uncovered the long lost Ozma Tippetarius?

She reached up for Elphaba's hand and was unceremoniously hoisted from her resting place. The thrill of it, the thrill of Elphaba was still there. But at Glinda's first step she felt dizzy and began to swoon. "Steady on, old girl," Elphaba was saying, but Glinda was gone.

* * *

Sitting up Glinda was frantic for a moment. "What was that?"

Yackle sighed. "I don't know, you shall have to tell me."

"The future. She was alive. She was still alive."

That got Yackle's attention. "She was?"

"She... we were happy." But this place felt the same. The warmth in her heart was real but so was the sorrow. There was more. "There was a granddaughter. Of Elphaba's. The Ozma Tippetarius had been found. Restored to the throne."

Yackle stroked her chin. "Interesting. We will speak with the Mother Superior."

"When can I go back?"

"We'll see."

She was nothing more than a child begging for scraps. But the possibility of going back to find a world like that was intoxicating. The prospect of creating a world like that was intoxicating.

This had not been a scientific or speculative journey for Glinda for some time, if ever. The political ramifications were currently coming a poor second to the more personal.

It could take Yackle hours to mount the stairs so Glinda went first, blinking in the relative brightness of the mauntery's halls. She could see the appeal of it to Elphaba. Sometimes - moreso now that Elphaba was a more tangible existence in her life again - she could almost catch sight of cape or gown in the darker corners.

The Mother Superior listened to Glinda's account thoughtfully while a grumbling Yackle caught up with them.

"Dragging me up and down those stairs," Yackle accused. "I was making my way off this mortal coil until pretty Miss Glinda the Good here came along, tearing up the place shouting for Yackle the old Witch."

"You remember it wrong, you old crone," Glinda gave back as good as she got. "The Mother Superior invited me here. Because of my connection with Elphaba."

"Connection," Yackle snorted.

The Mother Superior informed them they were both wrong: Oatsie Manglehold had fetched Glinda after the Flight of the Birds when they decided Elphaba should be there.

She and Glinda regarded one another with apprehension. Too late it dawned on them they were victims of their own success.

"I think," the Mother Superior pondered, "we may have changed more than we realised."

"Regardless," Glinda objected, "we have a job to do. I want Elphaba alive because she deserves to be alive. The world deserves her to be alive." I deserve her to be alive, came the unfinished thought.

"Perhaps, if what you say about the progeny is true, we have been short sighted. There is a future we are not - ordinarily - privy to. A story that, no matter how desperate circumstances might seem, is not yet done in the telling."

The words felt like a fatal blow. "Yes," Glinda said. "That's what Elphaba said. But I can't stop."

* * *

Glinda woke up in a bed but did not immediately recognise where or when she was. She sat slowly, allowing the sensations to take their time. The room was nicely furnished. The bed was a little low to the ground; her knees rose up as she put her feet to the floor. Munchkinland.

Then there was no slowness, she propelled herself to the door and peered down the corridor. Colwen Grounds. She was at Colwen Grounds.

Her maid appeared. "Are you ready to be dressed, Lady Chuffrey?"

"Is Sir Chuffrey here?"

"He's gone into town, ma'am."

She remembered now, or gained the knowledge of why she was here. Nessa's funeral. She had argued with Elphaba about shoes, drat, that had already occurred. How unhelpful. There were still opportunities though.

First, the matters of the day. Rather than running through the house in her nightgown looking for Elphaba – great as the temptation was – she put on a sombre black dress, she couldn't believe her other self had brought.

She found Elphaba pacing the terrace.

"How are you?" she asked quietly.

"As expected," Elphaba said. She was itching to leave, to be back on the broom to her exile at Kiamo Ko.

What to do? Try to keep her here? Take her back to the Emerald City? Always trying to manipulate Elphaba was exhausting. It was a fool's errand. She may as well be corralling the Cats out in the forest for all the good it would do. She surrendered to that feeling. "What do you need?"

Elphaba gave her a suspicious look.

"Anything you need." She spread her arms in an offering. "I will find a way to give it to you."

Now Elphaba was frowning. "I need Nor."

"I will find her." It was met with incredulity. "I have my ways."

"I know your ways." Such condescension.

"Yours have not exactly triumphed," Glinda snapped. "Needs must and you're not going to quibble about the means when you get the result."

"I dare say," Elphaba conceded. At least, Glinda took it as a concession.

"What else?"

"Independence for the Vinkus."

"Don't pull your punches."

"You said anything."

"I did. That's a longer game." She paused. "I'll do you a deal."

"I thought this was an offering, not an exchange or favour."

"It isn't a favour. But nor is it sorcery. It requires other deals and favours and a portion of that will have to come from you."

Elphaba was growing tired of it. "I'm not one for politics."

"You are. If I can..." she waved airily.

She was being intently regarded. "You can't have it both ways, you know," Elphaba said. "You make offers and I know you believe you can fulfil them. Which means you can't pretend it will happen by accident."

"It's better to let people think that. It's easier. It's safer."

"Don't you care what people think?"

"People think I'm Glinda the Good. They don't need to know how I scheme and plot."

"I would rather be known for that."

"You are," Glinda retorted. "And how has that approach worked out for you?"

"Touché." But Elphaba smiled. But, "I want those shoes, Glinda."

"I know. I will get them for you."

It brought a contentment to her. "What should I do?"

Glinda tried to keep a straight face. Elphaba Thropp, asking for her advice. She was as vulnerable as Elphaba could be: Nessa dead, the family at Kiamo Ko gone.

"Stay here." Glinda moved toward her, indicating her seriousness. "Take up the position or not but stay here. Be some sort of figurehead. War is coming."

It made Elphaba baulk but she knew enough to trust what Glinda said. "To Munchkinland?"

"To everyone. But yes, to Munchkinland. Secession is one thing, all out war is another."

"The grain supplies?"

"Restwater."

Elphaba pondered it. "Maybe war would clear the board."

"It won't," Glinda said. She didn't know that definitively, other than that war never did. "Munchkinland won't win. No-one will win, in truth."

"No," Elphaba conceded.

"You have grown more militant in your old age," Glinda smiled fondly.

Elphaba, saints be praised, smiled back. "The world has made me militant." It was a sadness.

"I'm sorry for it," Glinda said.

"And speaking of," Elphaba said, "we've got a funeral to get to."

Glinda took Elphaba's hand and squeezed it, before heading to the chapel. She sat next to Chuffrey and felt a lightness pass over her.

* * *

Glinda felt sure, as she resurfaced in her world, that things would be different. She did not feel different.

It was the Wizard. He had come to Elphaba later and re-invigorated her against him. When Glinda had tried so hard to change their paths.

"It's not Elphaba at all," Glinda protested. "It's everyone else I need to be fixing."

"But for you," Yackle pondered, "it is Elphaba. You don't get sucked back to the Wizard or anyone else. Just to her."

"Of course it's her," Glinda said, irritated. "My whole life has been in thrall of her, defined by her and what recompense have I ever had?" A few rolls in the hay in other worlds. Not to be sniffed at but also sadly lacking.

* * *

There were aspects of life at the mauntery Glinda found she enjoyed. The solemnity, the practiced care of ritual. There were aspects she did not enjoy. The coldness of her cell in the morning as she rose being chief among them. No maid, no roaring fires. Just flagstones freezing no matter how warm the day outside and a similarly freezing jug of water to wash with.

The sticky breakfast of oatmeal beckoned and Glinda navigated the twisting staircases down to the kitchens to receive her bowl. The maunts looked upon her with a vague sympathy. What the Mother Superior had told them Glinda did not know and did not care to. Perhaps her grief had driven her here. Perhaps she was atoning. Perhaps she was having a midlife crisis. Perhaps she was.

They kept a distance from her so she was… not exactly enjoying, but doing her best to appreciate her breakfast when the bells began a desperate clanging and not at any hour for prayer.

Sister Doctor got to her feet. "That'll be the army."

"So soon?" Glinda asked, startled. The clouds of war were gathering but an invasion or occupation - or whatever it was - had not seemed imminent.

"Which army?" asked another maunt. "If it's the Vinkuns I'll go make myself presentable." Some of the others cackled.

The Munchkin maunts were offended. "There's nothing wrong with our men," one objected. Squabbling was merely par for the course, a formality.

"Hold on," Glinda said as she stood. "The Vinkuns? Surely you mean the Imperial Army?"

"Your countryfolk have seen fit to stay out of the dispute," Sister Doctor replied. "No doubt they are waiting for an advantageous level of attrition before they step in."

Now the Gillikinese maunts were offended but everyone continued to bustle into the main hall where the Mother Superior was issuing orders and organising their retreat. Sister Doctor headed to her apothecary and Glinda felt rather like a spare part.

She went down to the crypt to find Yackle. She didn't think a trip was advisable right now and she had found from experience it was best to leave some time after eating. But the crypt was darker and emptier than it usually was. There was no Yackle, no potions. The cowardly old woman had fled at the first sight of trouble. But fleeing was not the aged Yackle's speciality. There was no cot, either. There was no sign at all of their activities. Even the cobwebs were untouched.

"Oh," Glinda said, the echoes picking her up and carrying her about the maze of tunnels and rooms. "I'm already here."

Having wasted an hour already she picked up her skirts and hurried back up to the action. Which had transferred itself to the courtyard where maunts loaded carts with looted mauntery goods and began their dispersal to the four corners of Oz.

In the distance there were ominous drums and the faint screeching of horns. This was interpreted as being the Vinkuns, or so the murmur went around. This was confirmed a moment later when someone pointed to the sky and called out, "There she is."

Glinda hardly needed to look to know. And sure enough, cutting a swathe across the otherwise idyllic blue morning sky, there was Elphaba Thropp her very self, astride her broom with cape billowing. She was flanked by two Herons and it was an arresting sight, Glinda had to concede.

She started climbing the outer steps to the courtyard wall, trying to get that little bit closer to the sky, and waved her arms ineffectively. "Yoo hoo!" she called and was met with a little wobble of the broom. Glinda waved again and Elphaba wheeled round and headed down. She gestured the Herons to continue their scouting.

The landing was practiced and precised, as was the scowl Glinda was met with. "Your attendance here is undesirable," Elphaba informed her.

"I didn't realise I stood in the path of the machinery of war. Or are you deliberately dismantling Unionist institutions?"

"It's crossed my mind," Elphaba said. "I've not got time for this but if you think you can bear the indignity I will take you back to the Emerald City."

"Not on that stick of firewood."

"I don't have an Animal on hand to enslave," Elphaba snapped. "Unless you do?"

"I came the old fashioned way," Glinda said, adding, "by road," just for the sake of clarity. If they were fated to argue at least it need not be about that. "And I've no intention of leaving. Certainly not now I know you are involved. I mean, now I have you here."

Whatever Elphaba might have been wanting to say or ask - her face held a look that was distinctly unconvinced - what she actually said was, "I suppose I should thank you for saving my sister."

"Did I? Much good that did. Saved her for you to kill yourself."

Elphaba considered for a moment. "There's no definite intention of killing her."

"Very reassuring. What is it then? For heaven's sake, Elphaba, it's not the shoes is it? Don't tell me you would drag all of Oz into war over a pair of shoes and yet people think I am the vain one?"

"It's not about the shoes! Nessarose's secession hurts the Vinkus most and with the Quadlings all but wiped out we need control of Restwater to force the Emerald City's compromise."

It was undoubtedly also about the shoes. "One of these times I am going to get you those shoes." At least Glinda could rule preserving Nessarose's life off the list of attempts in further excursions.

The quizzical look was back on Elphaba's face. Glinda sighed. "Be on your way to whatever destruction and doom you are inevitably called. And I'm sure you won't but I'll say it to flatter myself: don't worry about me. I'll be back safely in the Emerald City before you know it." The lightheadedness was creeping in and she wanted Elphaba gone, as nice as it was to see her all vital and incensed. Murderous and warmongering was less nice but Glinda took whatever consolation she could get.

Elphaba had the decency to look at least a little torn before looking up at the sky and the sight of more Birds approaching along with another figure on a broom. A real family affair this war was turning out to be.

"Go," Glinda repeated. And so she got to watch Elphaba turn away for yet another last time.

* * *

Glinda came round with a groan at the ready. "Deliver me from Thropps!"

"Had fun?"

"Let's just say that Elphaba's survival does not preclude civil war."

"Good to know," Yackle said cheerfully, almost certainly no longer listening to Glinda's debriefs. Glinda herself was struggling to keep up with all the many lifetimes of memories piling up inside her mind and the furious calculations about what could be done, what tweak or push might get some reward this time round. Her patience for tweaks was running thin.

* * *

Glinda woke with Ama Clutch tutting around her room at Crage Hall. She sat up in bed with a dreamy nostalgia sweeping through her. The door opened and Elphaba came in, holding her wash bag and wearing that red monstrosity of a shift and Glinda's heart soared. Then she recalled how she had come to be here bearing all this strangely out of place knowledge and part of her resented it. There were dreamy recollections of Elphaba without that dreadful outfit and Glinda yearned for the simplicity of it.

Despite Glinda's gaze Elphaba barely spared her a glance as she moved to her bed and began putting her oils away. "You'd best move fast," she warned. "There was room just now but there will be a queue soon."

"All right," Glinda said. "In a moment."

Something in her tone was unexpected to Elphaba and she regarded her suspiciously. Glinda tossed her head for effect. "How is the weather today, Ama Clutch?"

"Fair enough," she replied, pushing back the nets. "Your Doctor Dillamond still has his lights on," she remarked, presumably to Elphaba. "I wonder that he hasn't fallen asleep over his microscope."

The dread of it propelled Glinda across the room and to the window. Not today. As if this undertaking were not difficult enough that she should be competing against such events.

"I'll go and see that the old Goat wakes - either from his slumber or the trance of productivity I know you scholarly folk get yourselves into." Again talking to Elphaba who joined them at the window.

"He has a class at nine o'clock," Elphaba contributed. "Maybe you should."

The fabric of Elphaba's dress rustled across Glinda's bare arm. To move an inch she would be touching Elphaba's own skin. "I'll go," Glinda blurted out. The impetuousness of youthful blood in her veins, even if she had an old mind.

"You're not halfway ready," Ama Clutch pointed out.

"Hurry and help me then," Glinda said, heading to her drawers with intent.

"I'll go," said Elphaba. "At least I am not indecent. Any more so than usual."

"Everyone coming over all helpful all of a sudden!" Glinda exclaimed. "I said I shall go so I shall. The pair of you can look aghast at each other as much as you like." The tug on her laces was a little sharper than strictly necessary but she had borne worse. She struggled into her dress and Ama Clutch approached her with a brush. "My hair is fine," she said briskly. "I shall meet you in the Buttery shortly."

She could only imagine the looks on their faces as she fled from the room.

This action had brought about Ama Clutch's doom but Glinda was ready. She was a sorceress. If not now precisely then in the future but the point held.

Not that any measure of sorcery would help. Doctor Dillamond was already slain by the time she arrived and - as Elphaba had been certain - there trundled the dull metal of the tiktok creature. With this prior warning, from the future and her past, she managed to disarm Grommetik and relieve it of some essential part of robotic anatomy so that it whirred plaintively but could not move, springs hanging from the front panel as if disemboweled.

The next steps were less clear. Had Ama Clutch sought out Madame Morrible, or vice versa? Did it matter, now that Elphaba's mentor was dead yet again? All this would prevent was Nanny and Nessarose arriving in Shiz for another year.

Having failed to make the situation better it occurred to Glinda that she had it within her means to make it a lot worse. She just had to overturn what she had spent a lifetime convincing herself of – that Elphaba had never really cared.

She sidestepped the pool of blood and wound her way through the still-familiar Shiz corridors to the Head's office. She pinched her arm viciously in order to bring tears to her eyes though if she had stopped for a moment and allowed her frustrations to well up she could easily have manufactured the sadness through more natural means.

"Oh, Madame Morrible!" She burst into the room in great alarm. "It's too awful! Doctor Dillamond is dead, I saw it all!" While maintaining the act she tried to watch closely for the reaction. Whether she would be believed and what Morrible's remedy would be.

"Dear me, child!" Morrible rose from her armchair. "Sit down and collect yourself."

"It was your tiktok manservant!"

There seemed to be little reaction to Glinda's hysterics, which could be too easily written off. She upped the stakes. "But… it has no free will surely? How could it…" She looked at Madame Morrible in only partially feigned fear.

Morrible could pick up the train of thought and perhaps, Glinda considered, had in fact not under estimated Glinda in the same ways so many had. She seemed to believe Glinda could put this puzzle together. She had turned to her desk, coming back with wand in hand. Pushing Glinda into the chair she leant down and put the wand to Glinda's forehead. "Such a shame."

* * *

As she sat up from her cot Yackle was watching her intently. "Very curious," she said.

"What is?" Glinda asked, reaching to pour the now ever-ready salts into the glass of water and take a sip.

"I could have sworn you died."

"I did. I had an idea. I assume it didn't work? I'm not convinced any of it will ever work."

"It did something." Yackle was engrossed and concentrating. "Yes, I remember. At university. You and her tutor died. Aye, that shook her up all right."

"And yet here I am."

"Uncanny to remember both," Yackle concluded.

The throbbing in Glinda's temples began to subside. She looked sideways at Yackle, deliberating on whether to indulge in the question. "Do you recall if it had any affect on Elphaba? Did she do anything?"

"About you? She went haring off to the Emerald City to harangue the Wizard and get tossed in Southstairs is what she did. I suppose she's there now somewhere, rotting away in its bowels. That sounds nice, rotting away. Wish someone would leave me to rot away," Yackle said with more cheer than the concept warranted.

"She's not, is she?" Glinda was startled. "Yackle, concentrate, you old bat."

"She can't be, can she," Yackle shot back. "She died at Kiamo Ko. That's why we are here."

"I suppose I should be grateful I was not tragically cut down in my prime..." Glinda mused. But she was so frustrated she could happily throttle someone but, while Yackle was a tempting option, she refrained.

* * *

Glinda found herself in the dark. That slowly resolved itself into being the interior of a church. What she was doing in a church she was unclear about. In the cloister. Knelt opposite the decaying statue of Saint Glinda.

"Oh, it's me," she said. The words echoed and she cringed. Her purpose here began to slowly resolve itself too. She was to look for Elphaba. And she knew this place. She knew now how Elphaba had spent so many years so nearby.

A bemused maunt let her in. "How can we be of service, Lady Glinda?"

She wanted to be at least a little circumspect about this. "I wondered, in fact, if there was any way I could be of service to you?"

The maunt blanched. "I think I should fetch the Mother Superior."

The Mother Superior took Glinda on a wandering tour while they talked. She heard about their work, reflecting on why she had not been drawn here before. Not the life but the stillness, the tranquillity. The ease of dropping money into the collection box or pressing it into the Mother Superior's hand and to be absolved. Of what? Of everything.

The mauntery at Shale Shallows was different. More open, more befitting a rural retreat. This was enclosed, suffocated by the city looming over it.

She didn't need to enquire after Elphaba. As they rounded a corner there she was, all severe in the black robes.

"This is Sister St Aelphaba," the Mother Superior said. "She is not given to conversation."

So Glinda understood, though it seemed an unlikely prospect. "Hello, Elphaba," she said.

And Elphaba looked at her but there was nothing behind her eyes. No memory or recollection. She had wiped out her past. As a way to survive. What had Glinda wanted? To take her hand and run from the mauntery? A grand gesture? It would not work. It wasn't that Elphaba didn't seem to recognise her. She wasn't trying to. Glinda was just another face looming in and out of her world.

They walked on and sat in the Mother Superior's parlour for a while. Discussing various donations or demonstrations Glinda could make. That Elphaba was there in the building was a form of torment. But Elphaba had receded from the world. What was there now for Glinda to do? The desperation mounted. Time after time, nothing. Maybe she could make a donation. Maybe Elphaba would never travel to the Vinkus. Maybe she would go home to Colwen Grounds instead. The time for tweaks was passed. The shunt onto a new path needed to be stronger.

In the main hall she said her goodbyes and was interrupted by a small ball of boy streaking past.

"Master Liir!" shouted the Mother Superior. "Control yourself!"

He came back, panting.

"And put some clothes on, child."

He looked up at Glinda. "Hello."

"This is Lady Chuffrey," the Mother Superior said.

"You're not a maunt, I presume." Glinda addressed him.

He shrugged.

"How old is he?" she asked.

The Mother Superior waved her hand. "Two years? Three?"

Glinda did not have great experience with these matters but suspected that estimate fell a bit short. "He is Sister St Aelphaba's." She wasn't sure how successfully she made that a question.

"Sister St Aelphaba doesn't seem to think so."

A practical use began to reveal itself.

"Does he go to school?"

"The sisters tend to him. When they can catch him."

He stood looking up at her. A stillness and peculiar gaze that she recognised so well.

"Suppose I take him, as a ward. As you know, Sir Chuffrey and I have not been blessed by the Unnamed God. I could bring him up."

The Mother Superior regarded her. "Nothing formal," Glinda continued. "But out from under your feet. All expenses taken care of. Until Sister St Aelphaba recovers herself."

The Mother Superior bent down. "Would you like to go stay with Lady Chuffrey?"

"Will there be cake?"

"Yes, there will be cake," Glinda answered, very solemnly.

"All right," he said.

This little monster was going to step into the myth Elphaba would become. Or the granddaughter was. Elphaba was soon going to be busy creating the legacy of a devil out at Kiamo Ko ready for others to take on the mantle. This time around Glinda was determined to control the future iterations. They left immediately.

* * *

Glinda was choking on coughs before she was properly awake.

"What did you do?" barked Yackle.

A terrific boom brought dust down from the ceiling.

"Nothing!" Glinda shouted back over the noise of artillery. "Well, possibly something. It was a frustrated roll of the dice."

"A bad roll!" Yackle admonished.

"Come on," Glinda tried to hurry her from the room.

"Shan't," Yackle said. "I came to this mauntery to die and be buried in the rubble. So die and be buried in the rubble I shall."

"You shall not," Glinda objected. "I shall not. Send me back now and I will fix this."

"You don't know how you unfixed it in the first place. We were always just clutching at straws."

"One last time." Another crash brought down a chunk of ceiling. "How many more doses do you have?"

"Plenty. Were the army not about to flatten us."

"All in."

Yackle shook her head. "Not safe."

"We have to. Yackle, I can't let this go." Glinda got down on her knees and took gnarled hands into her own. Her mind was awash with too many threads of possible worlds embedded in it. "I've seen too much. I can't accept this is how the world must be. I'd rather…" It had become more than an apocalyptic impulse, if that were even possible. There was nothing she would not risk for another chance.

Yackle pursed her lips but nodded too. A pillar creaked and sagged. A hole opened up in the ceiling and a chair fell through. The crypt shook so that one of Yackle's bottles leapt from the crate top to the floor and smashed.

"Nothing much to lose," Yackle said, game.

"Everything to gain," Glinda replied as she tipped back her head and drained the flask.

* * *

Galinda put a hand to her head. The pain was sharp and she hoped she was not getting a headache; she must be on her best and most glittering form. She followed her new roomie along interminable cold corridors.

The Miss Elphaba stopped and double checked the number painted on the door. Galinda studied the sharp profile. "Have we met before?"

"Generally people do not forget having met me." Elphaba opened the door but hesitated and out of some better inclination held it open for Galinda to pass through first into their room.

"You're a curious creature, Miss Elphaba," Galinda said, looking around. "However, I find I rather like you."

"Lurline preserve us," Elphaba muttered as she swung her bag on to her bed.

There was a wave of affection that Galinda could not account for. "I think we are going to be firm friends."


End file.
